Different Shades
by Bellatrix wannabe 89
Summary: After Olivia says yes to Tuckers offer to buy her a drink in "Padre Sandunguero" will she realize there's far more to the hardened IAB agent then meets the eye, or will she only continue to see him in shades of black and white? Tuckson oneshot.


**I own no one but my own people**

**A/N Just an adorable little Tuckson oneshot after what happened when Liv agreed to a drink with Tucker. Enjoy. And review. But mostly enjoy. **

"How's the wine here?"

"I think you should try the bourbon."

Olivia couldn't hold back the chuckle as she looked into the light blue eyes of Ed Tucker, seeing something she could almost classify as playfulness in them. "You win. I'll try the bourbon."

Tucker smiled at her and, with a gesture that Olivia wasn't quite sure what to me of, his hand touched her back as he led her to two empty seats away from the loud crowd he had arrived with.

"So Tucker," Olivia began as she sat down on one of the old style bar stools, "is this a professional drink or two acquaintances in a bar having a good time?"

"It's Ed, Sergeant," he told her as he sat down beside her. "And I would like to think that I could show you a good time."

Olivia raised her brow at his smirk as he turned and nodded towards the bartender, a thick middle aged blonde woman with breasts that was bigger than her head, the 'support your troops, sleep with a soldier' scrawled on her t-shirt drawing even more attention to them.

She walked over to the Sergeant and Lieutenant. "What the hell do you want, putz?" the bartender greeted Tucker.

"Classy as ever, Mary... Why don't you actually earn your tips and get me two Noah Mill's on the rocks?" he answered. Olivia raised her brow slightly at the label choice.

"Noah Mills?"

Tucker nodded as he twisted his chair so he was facing her. "Little distributer from Kentucky, this is one of the only few places in the city that sells it. Why, do you have another preference?" he asked as he began to raise his hand to tell the bartender to stop pouring.

"No it's fine I just thought the name was funny." Seeing the confusion in his eyes she elaborated. "My sons name is Noah."

Tucker looked puzzled for a moment later before he nodded and clicked his tongue. "That's right; I forgot you adopted a kid. How's he doin', I heard he was sick a while back?"

"Yeah he had a little bit of an emergency but he's fine now, he's actually got his third tooth in the other day," she informed the IAB agent with an air of pride. "But I haven't officially adopted him yet, right now he's only my foster son."

The bartender placed the two glasses of bourbon in front of him and nodded towards Olivia. "This guy gives you any trouble you holler at me and I'll take care of him okay sweetie?"

Tucker got out a ten spot and threw it on the bar in front of her which Mary promptly swept up. "Don't you have an actual job to do or is harassing me all night in your contract?"

"Harassing you is the best part of my night, Eddy."

"Well as fun as pestering me is, I think Valdez needs another drink. Why don't you go hook him up?"

"Oh, wanna be left alone with the girl huh? Don't worry, I can take a hint, I'm leaving. Have fun tonight, sweetie," she said with a friendly smile towards the SVU officer.

Olivia couldn't help but grin as the bartender walked away to go tend to her other patrons. "I take it you're hardly in here at all?"

The lieutenant chuckled as he handed Olivia her glass. "Mary's a great girl, real good to the bureau. She lets us have all our functions here, all our retirement parties... Her husband was IAB," he explained. "Retired a few years back, they opened up this bar just for us. This is the only 'cop bar' in Manhattan that'll let us in."

"Makes sense; drunken cops and drunken IAB agents don't really mix well together."

Tucker raised his glass with Olivia doing the same. "Well here's hoping tonight can change that stereotype."

They clinked their glasses together and took a small sip of the bourbon. Olivia licked her lips and nodded. "You were right," she told him as she set her glass down. "They do have pretty good bourbon."

"See what happens when you don't go for classy and familiar? You find that new, blue collar and grizzled go down just a little bit better."

Olivia raised her brow. "Oh yeah? And uh… how does new, blue collar and grizzled go down exactly?"

"A little hard at first with a nice smooth finish..." That playful almost arrogant light shone in his eyes, "and you look like a woman that can handle it going down a little rough…"

For as long as she had known Tucker, almost thirteen years now, he had NEVER once talked remotely inappropriately. Truth be told, Olivia dealt with more sexual harassment from cops, including some in her own squad, then she had with IAB agents. But now here he was talking about how she could handle her 'bourbon' going down.

As much as she hated to admit his flirty playfulness was almost infective and she found herself smirking back at him. "Oh trust me, Ed; I can handle any way bourbon goes down. Smooth…" she leaned in closer as did he. "Or rough." she finished with an enticing grin.

Tucker pursed his lips slightly in an amused gesture, his blue eyes looking her up and down but was back on her face before she could even blink. "Ya know I always had an idea that you were a little feisty," he told her as he took another drink.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. And when am I ever wrong?" Tucker asked as he also set down his drink.

Olivia let out a fake laugh as she shook her head. "I assure you, we will not be getting into that tonight."

It felt a little odd at first, to have his first name roll off of her tongue so informally. But at the same time she kind of liked it. It was something new and exciting.

"I am not wrong that much."

Olivia raised the glass to her lips once again. "Oh trust me, you are."

"Name one-."

"Lincoln Haver," she interrupted quickly. "Clyde Vandyne, Kim Rollins-."

"Alright, alright you made your point…" Tucker took another quick drink. "But, in my defense, your DNA was on the knife, and you were calling that idiot reporter several times a night."

Olivia was slightly taken aback. "Idiot? You mean Kurt Moss?"

"Yeah. What kind of moron lets his girlfriend take the rap from him just because he wants to protect his source, who turned out to be a killer if I remember correctly?"

Olivia couldn't help the smirk that graced her lips. "Why, Lieutenant Tucker… Is that a bit of jealousy I hear?"

She expected him to deny it. That she was over exaggerating. But instead he just gave her a flash of that smug grin. "What can I say I didn't like the guy…"

The Sergeant's eyes went wide. "Wait, you were actually jealous?"

"Can you blame me? You're a smart sexy independent woman, any man would be."

Olivia had just taken a sip of her drink when he told her that and it promptly came back up in the form of a sputtering cough. Never, in all of her years that she knew him did she EVER thought the word 'sexy' would come out of Ed Tucker's mouth when describing her. Annoying, pain the ass, stubborn definitely. But smart, sexy, and independent? No.

But she would have been lying through her teeth if she didn't admit it felt good to hear those words said in that kind of deep gruff timber that she could only describe as 'Tucker.'

She quickly wiped her mouth with one of the napkins and looked at him for a moment, half expecting to hear 'April fools' being shouted at her from the whole bar. But instead he just looked at her with those striking blue eyes sending a pleasant shudder through her body. A shudder she never thought she would feel when it came to Tucker.

Olivia cleared her throat and cocked her head, already knowing the answer. "And Brian?"

"Cassidy? What about him?"

"Were you jealous of him too? You did seem to target him a bit."

Tucker took a moment to pause before he answered. Brian was one of his agents and as a rule the Lieutenant never badmouthed his agents, ESPECIALLY not to cops. Like he learned in the military if there was something wrong with the people underneath you, the leadership was to blame, and badmouthing was proving there was something wrong with him. "Cassidy is a real good guy," Tucker started off, actually meaning the praises about his newest agent. "He's a hell of an agent. He has the right ethics and morals for this job; he's fair, down to earth... I didn't put him with IAB as punishment, I knew he would do well here and he has."

"Almost sounds like you're trying to hook me back up with him."

"But… from my perspective he was too… immature for a woman like you. So yeah, I was jealous he got to call himself your boyfriend when you really needed something else."

"And um…" Olivia moved even closer, lowering her voice just slightly so he too would have to lean in to hear her. "What exactly do you think I need?"

Tucker looked her square in the eyes. "A real man."

He was now so close she could smell his cologne. The scent wasn't cheap but it wasn't uptight and expensive either. It was like him; tough, manly, it got the job it was supposed to do done without bells and whistles.

Olivia was flabbergasted with how she could have missed it all these years because as she inhaled it, she discovered whatever he was wearing she definitely liked it...

"Where do you think I could find one of those?" she asked, her voice nothing but a low seductive whisper. Tucker didn't even attempt to hide the fact that his eyes looked her up and down before he settled on her face again, leaning in even closer.

"If you're willing to try it out, there's one right in front of you."

She breathed softly. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Before Olivia could even blink his lips were on hers. It started off slow and tight lipped, almost like they were afraid to get too intimate with one another. But finally Olivia opened her mouth a tiny bit and began to kiss back.

Tucker ran a rough calloused hand through her hair, pulling her in closer as the intensity of the kiss began to mount, the other hand resting on the small of her back. Olivia wrapped her arms around him, her nails just barely pressing into his back.

A loud crash followed by uproarious laughter finally caused them to break away, both turning towards the cause off the disturbance. A clearly intoxicated young agent, no more than twenty five, had fallen face first onto the ground and was now using her vacant barstool to try to lift herself back up, only managing in getting a few inches off the ground before she was back on the dusty wooden floor again, her skirt hiking up far more than what she would have ever liked her male colleagues to see.

Olivia started to get off her bar stool to help her but without a word of explanation Tucker immediately got up off the stool and made his way over to the girl, leaving the SVU Sergeant sitting in her spot and her lips tingling from her most recent encounter.

For a brief second, Olivia thought Tucker would have joined in the cat calls or jeers that was directed at the drunk agent but instead he simply grabbed one of her arms and pulled her too her feet, fully supporting her weight. His hands didn't grab any unnecessary part of her he didn't even have that arrogant smirk he was known for.

He actually looked concerned.

Tucker's blue eyes found the only other female in their group and he nodded to her, the thirty something year old got up from her spot and made her way over to them. "Need me to take her home, Sir?" she asked gratefully pulling down her colleague's skirt.

"How much have you had to drink?" Tucker asked ignoring the incoherent babblings of the woman he was still supporting.

"Not a single drop, I got court tomorrow. I was actually just about to head out."

The sober woman put the drunken girl's arm over her shoulder and relieved Tucker of the weight who still looked concerned over the wellbeing of his agent. "Get her home safe, alright? Don't just leave her in front of her building but make sure she's actually IN the apartment. I'll pay you back the gas money."

"Sure thing. She'll be alright, Sir, I promise."

They both bid each other tonight before the two girls headed out into the night and Tucker returned to Olivia who was wondering if the whole world had turned upside down or just her little part of it.

Tucker had actually been concerned about one of his agents, one of his FEMALE agents. All of that after him and Olivia had actually kissed. On top of that, Olivia discovered Tucker was actually a pretty decent kisser.

Through all the years that Olivia knew him, she never would have pegged him for a guy that knew how to use his lips well. A scarlet blush rose to her cheeks as she briefly wondered if he was that talented with his mouth in other places…

He returned to the seat besides her, a deep chuckle as he watched her cast her eyes down towards the scratched wood in the bar. "You don't have to be embarrassed ya know."

Olivia cleared her throat and looked back up rather awkwardly. "I know… I mean I- I'm not. It's just... Uh…"

"You think there's bad blood between us." Tucker leaned in closer to her, his voice softer (as soft as he could get it in any case) then she had ever heard. "It's just a job, Olivia. Nothing personal I promise."

A small smile worked its way onto her lips. Olivia had never heard him use her first name before in that way. Only once in recent memory could she remember him calling her 'Olivia' and that was when he was arresting her for murder. Apart from that it was always 'Benson', 'Detective Benson' or more recently 'Sergeant Benson' or just 'Sergeant'. She would have been lying through her teeth if she said it wasn't nice to hear.

Tucker grinned at the smile and reached up, pushing a stray piece of hair out of her face. She finally met his eyes again. "You really think we could make this work?" Olivia asked, using a gentle tone she never thought she would be using when she spoke to him. "You and me together?"

He was silent for a second and Olivia was half afraid he would say no. That the entire thing was a mistake and he would see her tomorrow at Amaro's hearing and she would have to pay for her own drink.

Instead he surprised her and himself as well with his answer. "Yeah. I think we could. We're both old enough to know people aren't just black and white. There are shades of gray in each of us. Hopefully…" He raised his half drank glass of bourbon. "You can fall for a few of those shades instead of just the black."

Olivia chuckled, raising her glass as well. "Wow… Ed Tucker a romantic… who would have thought?"

"Just one of the shades," he told her with a smirk, toasting his glass against hers.

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